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Ensuring justice for all THE Supreme Court’s suo motu notice last week of journalist Hayatullah Khan’s murder, ordering the NWFP chief secretary to file comments on the issue before 30 June, is the umpteenth suo motu notice which the apex court has taken this year. Suo motu means taking up cases on the court’s own accord, usually based on newspaper reports or on the basis of a letter addressed to the court pointing out violations or irregularities. Last week, the Supreme Court also took suo motu notice against the Islamabad judicial magistrate based on newspaper reports about the acquittal of three persons who were accused in a kidnapping-cum-assault-cum-robbery case. The Chief Justice of Pakistan directed the Islamabad judicial magistrate to submit his comments on June 26 on the sudden acquittal of the three accused, one of whom is reported to be the son of an additional sessions judge and another the nephew of a retired federal secretary. Earlier in March this year, the Supreme Court had taken suo motu notice of the murder of a taxi driver in Islamabad and the harassment of his family, expressing dissatisfaction over the police investigation and ordering the SSP Islamabad to catch the real culprits. In another hearing of the same case in early June, the apex court directed the SSP Islamabad to provide protection to the widow of the murdered taxi driver and her children and also ordered the Federal Government Services Hospital to provide free medical treatment to them and the director-general of Baitul Mal to provide financial assistance to them. In another case earlier this month, the SC had taken suo motu notice based on press reports regarding the death of three children in Mirpurkhas who were electrocuted while swimming in a pond which contained exposed wires of an illegal power connection to a tubewell. The Supreme Court ordered the government to provide compensation to the families of the three children within 15 days, and also directed the chief executive of the Hyderabad Electricity Supply Company and the chairman of the Canal and Irrigation Department to launch a drive against illegal electricity connections. In another suo motu case this month based on complaints by students of an unrecognised medical college in Faisalabad, the apex court ordered the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council to investigate the matter and recognise the college if it was deserving or else the college management should return the money to the students. At the same time, the court also reprimanded the health ministry for failing to discourage the continued functioning of non-recognized medical colleges thus jeopardising the careers of hundreds of medical students. Last month, based on a complaint by an individual about the sale of expired medicines, the Supreme Court in a suo motu action directed the health ministry to ensure the voluntary destruction of expired medicines by pharmaceutical companies. It also ordered the ministry to ensure that medicines are sold only at licensed medical stores and by qualified pharmacists. Also in May, based on a letter written by some Bangladeshi prisoners in Adiala Jail about their plight, the Supreme Court took suo motu notice and ordered the government to expedite efforts for early deportation of foreign inmates languishing in Pakistani jails. According to official records, the number of cases which the Supreme Court had disposed off since the beginning of this year are 3,746 cases in January, 1,718 in February, 2,651 in March, 2,012 in April, and 1,753 in May. (It is not stated however, whether these figures refer to petition cases only or they include suo motu cases as well.) Anyway, judging by the cases cited above, suo motu notices by the Supreme Court in Pakistan seem to be more of a routine rather than the exception. This can only be a reflection of the extent of injustice in the country and the number of people who are desperate for appropriate relief. But suo motu actions by the Supreme Court can at best only provide justice to some individuals here and there. To ensure justice for all, we need to change and reform our system of increasingly widespread corruption and inertia, which is causing so much injustice around us and burdening our judicial system with so many apparently trivial cases. Justice ought to be ensured and dispensed under a system as a whole, a system which has strong and credible accountability processes in every ministry, organisation and department. The whole nation cannot simply depend on one institution alone, the Supreme Court, to ensure and dispense justice. In any case, the SC is not supposed to function like some kind of complaint cell for each and everyone who is seeking justice vis-a-vis any corrupt or non-performing individual, department or organisation, specially the police or the lower courts. Since the office of the Federal Ombudsman has practically been paralysed by the absence of an officer in this top post since the last one retired in February 2006, many aggrieved people must have been turning to the Supreme Court in the quest for an alternative source of justice. Given the fact that the Federal Ombudsman office reportedly deals with some 30,000 cases annually hailing from all over the country, one can imagine the extra burden which the Supreme Court would have to bear. According to a saying attributed to King Solomon: Justice will only be achieved when those who are not injured by crime feel as indignant as those who are. It seems that our society in general, specially those in positions that matter, have yet to feel as indignant as those who are injured by injustice.
